


thank god I'm pretty (in bits and pieces)

by The_Resurrection_3D



Series: Crimson Bound AU [1]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Little Red Riding Hood Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Misgendering, Scraps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Resurrection_3D/pseuds/The_Resurrection_3D
Summary: When Matt is fourteen, his aunt tells him the world is going to end.





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think words can accurately capture how fucking monkey I've gone right now. The closest comparison I can think of is when I was caught in a blisteringly cold rain storm with only my slippers and when I'd finally managed to reach my apartment I made eye contact with my TomMatt roommate and screamed "I'M FUCKING APE." 
> 
> So, if you haven't followed my tumblr for awhile, these are a few selections from Matt's chapter of my CB AU, which is based of Rosamund Hodge's book _Crimson Bound_ and which you can read more about [here (links to other parts, in chronological order)](https://theresurrection3d.dreamwidth.org/882.html) or [here (more on the basic set-up)](https://the-resurrection-3d.tumblr.com/cb). 
> 
> This is not Matt's whole chapter; these are just excerpts because the first anniversary of when I started this fic is coming up and I'm tired of sitting on it. This doesn't have the Weeaboo Wednesday Saga and is therefore useless to me, but I figured someone else could potentially get something out of it if I uploaded the three main phases of Matt's signature chapter (meeting his aunt, meeting Edd, and then the very ending, which would catch his timeline up with OLG's). I could go on about the hassles this project's been facing, but I won't, because honestly who cares but me. If you wanna build off what's presented in this/OLG/clowns, go for it.
> 
> Some final notes:
> 
> > **huge** trigger warning for misgendering. Granted Matt isn't even aware he's trans for the majority of the chapter, but still, be safe. 
> 
> > yes, Matt's name is cheesy as hell. I literally stole his middle name from a Pureblood Hermione AU fic, though I don't remember which one. Read to the end of chapter three and you'll see why I picked it. 
> 
> > The song Edd is placing is "Everything You Know Is Wrong" by Weird Al.

When Matt is fourteen, his aunt tells him the world is going to end.

It goes like this:

i.

His mother has just died, as mothers tend to do.

The help spend hours priming him for the funeral, debating on the style of dress, the slant of the layers in his hair, the color of eye-shadow and tint of foundation. Whenever he moves, whether to look down at his mother’s corpse (herself dressed to the nines, though Matt knows she’d hate the pale shade of lipstick they’d slathered on) or to stand at the head of her coffin, he sees himself like a model in a tableau vivant – hair beginning to slide out of his purple bow, makeup tacky and borderline-neon in the lighting, fabric clinging to the rolls of fat as he bends over to fold her too-fleshy, too-stiff hand around the ostentatious diamond ring his newest nanny had insisted on.

Obviously, if she’s dead, she can’t snatch it off his hand and rebuke the both of them for his legendary carelessness, so he’s going to do it for her.

Standing off to the side, everything is back into place and the dress is falling right again, the bulge of his stomach not so prominent when he’s standing ramrod straight, his fidgeting with the charms of his bracelet an acceptable distraction rather than classroom infraction.

A nanny touches his shoulder. “Try to meet people’s eyes,” she whispers, and Matt wonders if he should go ahead and turn on the waterworks – that’s the show they’re waiting on, after all – but decides against it.

His mother’s business partners offer him looks of pity (with varying degrees of disgust), hugs that last either only a second or a few too long, and whisper amongst themselves about the will, perhaps hoping Matt will hear and offer forth the deathbed confession he was no doubt privy to.

Instead, Matt for once keeps his mouth shut.

(She couldn’t have known she would)

(Well, maybe)

(No, she wasn’t a day over forty-five, complete health nut)

(Wouldn’t be surprised if he killed her)

Yes, his father, the famous plastic surgeon, first for marrying the heiress of the largest gun supplier in all the Green King’s territories, then for abandoning her and their nine-year-old daughter. Around him, his mother’s business partners and who knows who else debate whether his father slipped back into the country and injected her with something that sent her into immediate cardiac arrest – no, all he needed to do is inject her with an air bubble between the toes  -- Tony, your wife’s soap operas are starting to get to you.

Well, as Matt has already told the police, he hasn’t seen his father since that fateful night, when he was sent off to bed early so (as everyone realized later) his father could get his mother drunk and then rush off to meet his private jet to Argentina. So if they’ll have to ask him themselves if he came back anytime between now and then.

“You said your father called you a few days ago—”

“For my birthday.”

“—Right,” the officer had flipped over a page in his little notebook. “Do you remember what he told you?”

Matt had snapped the elastic of his bracelet against his wrist a few times, catching from under his lashes how every cacophonous slap of metal and plastic made the corner of the office’s eye twitch. “Well, he wished me a happy birthday _, aaaaaaaand_ ” (drawing out the band, a snap so hard it leaves angry red marks on his skin) _“_ then he asked if I’d reconsidered having him shave down my chin.”

* * *

At the funeral, he cries a bit too loudly, so much so that the nanny closest to him taps him on the back and hands him another handful of tissues to help quiet him down.

When it’s done – when the dirt is patted down atop her and the fake grass set back and his nannies have ushered him into yet another black limousine -- he slumps into the plush leather seat and asks if they can go get something to eat.

Something fast and greasy, specifically, and more specifically not with them but with his friends, their deeper voices laughing and teasing him, their larger hands punching his shoulder, as though the plethora of differences between the shapes of their bodies don’t matter at all.

 But he keeps that to himself; it’ll only earn a rebuke for not watching his figure.

His figure. Ha.

His chin drops towards his chest, eyes catching on the small breasts all the nannies and seamstresses and magazines keep saying he’ll grow into one day. Matt envisions cutting them off – cleanly, no blood – with a plastic knife and watching the fat spill out, sand.

“We were planning on some chicken roulade for tonight,” the chauffeur says, to which Matt scrunches his nose, “but we can go back out for ice cream later.”

“Just don’t eat too much,” adds the nanny who had forced him into the bathroom to reapply his makeup before they went to the grave-site. “I know how tempting it is to eat your feelings, but you can’t fall into the habit. Once you get started, it’s almost impossible to stop, and even more impossible to lose the weight afterwards.” The rest of them make little sounds of agreement, and then one of them knocks his shoulder, telling him not to slouch.

He envisions slipping the knife under his breasts and the hillocks of fat on his stomach, shucking them off like a oyster shell, revealing the taunt, pink skin trapped underneath.

* * *

She arrives a week after the funeral, citing several woodspawn attacks on her district, and whisks Matt off to “talk about her future.”

The exchange happens at the park outside his school, which makes Matt think of all the bitter custody battles he’s seen on TV, the kind that end with bloodshed in a Poundland parking lot. The help cover his cheeks with chaste little pats, feigning teary eyes, and tell him they’ve already sent a car with all his luggage to her house. The only thing he’s holding is a framed picture of his mother, something they had insisted on, for whatever reason.

If the picture was meant to help him recognize Aunt Irene, it’s rendered unnecessary as soon as she steps out of her tiny, beat-up car. They lock eyes across the parking lot and wait for the other’s next move, her cloak a writhing wound in the air.

One of the nannies checks his shoulder and chides, “Be good,” before they all pile back into the limo and drive away, carbon footprint thick enough to make Matt cough.

Aunt Irene waves.

Matt waves back, forgetting which hand he’s holding his mother’s portrait in, and so drops it unceremoniously onto his foot.

* * *

She’s certainly a lot older than his mother is—was – her skin is starting to crinkle up and spot, her stomach peeking over the top of her jeans.

Still, that mantle, a crimson fan fluttering in the breeze.

“Do you guys have to wear those all the time?”

She smiles, her voice just a drop deeper than his mother’s and rough like unpolished wood. “When we’re on duty, yes.”

Before Matt can ask how exactly entertaining her dim-witted niece counts as being “on duty,” she cuts him off with a finger eagerly pointing to the plaited varicolored charms woven through the trees like streamers from a child’s birthday party, asking him if he knows anything about them.

He doesn’t.

Her polite smile doesn’t fall, but Matt can see the excited twinkle in her eyes dim. “Well, do you at least know what a woodwife does?” she asks.

Matt fidgets, readjusting the frame held under his arm, pulling up his sweatshirt sleeve and pretending to itch at the complex language of connect-the-dot doodles he’s made of his freckles. “Weave the charms that protect…from the Great Forest,” he drawls, “and keep the lore.” Taken right from the study guide for this Friday’s test: a brief history of woodwivery.

Not that that last bit matters much at all anymore, what with the hundreds of textbooks, articles, blogs, and documentaries on woodwives and how you can contact your district’s representative and sign up to start taking lessons right now, only three numbers away –

“And what do you know about the Devourer?” her words cut through his thoughts, her calloused, thin fingers tugging his wrist forward, out of the way of a skateboarder.

Matt breathes a sigh of relief as her hand comes away clean, but frowns as he deciphers his arm. He’s written what all his teachers and all the Church Fathers agree on, a simple word that even he knows is probably the wrong answer here: _fake_

So he shrugs.

His aunt sighs, an action which seems to draw her small, worn body down, threatening to crumble it. “Thousands of years ago,” she says, “the Devourer kept the sun and the moon in his belly, and the Forest reigned supreme. What happens next?”

“Uhh…” The sweat has begun to seep out, blurring the images. “Oh, wait! Zisa and Tiger –”

“Tyr.”

“—They took the sun and the moon out and threw them up into the sky!”

His aunt nods. “Yes, Matilda, good.” She pulls his arm away from his face. “Now do you remember what the Devourer is?”

Fake. “Someone very…mean?” What does she want him to say?

Her eye twitches, and when she raises her hand Matt struggles not to cringe away, but she simply takes her glasses off and wipes them on the hem of her cloak.

Again Matt suddenly wonders why the bloody hell she’s wearing that thing, it looks like she’s a runaway from the Renfair, until he feels another rivulet of cold water run down his back. He’s wearing his favorite black sweatshirt with two rags tied around his shoulders, knots hard lumps in his armpits, and two ice packs strapped to his chest and back with duct tape (that, now that he thinks about it, he probably shouldn’t have put over his nipples).

Oh well. The outfit is plain, yet designer, concealing the unfortunate curves of his torso. The perfect compromise.

He’d still brushed his hair a hundred times, until it was as smooth as butter; still spent, like, an hour doing his makeup, waving off the help and trying to get the wings of his eyeliner right all by himself; still stuffed a teddy bear into his pocket and dozen charm bracelets and dangles over each wrist. This girl is fashionable, this girl is beautiful, even in comfort clothes. Pays attention to her looks, yet makes it look effortless, and yes, you can and _should_ stare.

(But how many narcissists do you know that own no mirrors?)

“The Devourer is the god of the forestborn,” his aunt carefully explains, slowing her voice the way grown men do to him, the same way his teachers did back when they bothered to pay him any mind at all. “He is the everlasting hunger, and when he ruled, the forestborn ruled too.”

“Sounds awful.”

“It was; they hunted like rabbits.” She says it like it’s something he forgot to pick up from the store.

“Oh.” Matt chews the inside of his cheek, mind flashing back to every news report of woodspawn attacks, another straight-A student or minister’s son marked.

Another state-sanctioned execution; another bloodbound added to the Green King’s ranks.

“But Gisa and Tyr killed him!” he exclaims, recollection flashing like a firecracker. “She died, but he became the first Green King.”

His aunt’s eyes dart about the promenade, cataloging the location and hearing range of every child squealing on the playground, every bored parent scrolling through their phone. She starts to leans in, but nearly jumps right out of her skin as a blur of white jogging clothes rushes past them.

Yanking Matt forward, causing him to stumble and drop the picture frame again.

“Sorry!” he says hurriedly, but glass shards fall as he picks it back off the pavement. You can scarcely see his mother under all the cracks.

His aunt’s lips thin into a harsh line, and she says nothing.

* * *

His aunt takes him away from the city, out to her little cottage just outside of Bath, as close to the forest as she dares (for every forest more than half an acre is but a host for the Great Forest waiting to happen).

He learns to weave charms.

(no, no, again)

(are you even trying at _all?_ )

He learns how Zisa, the first woodwife, tricked the Devourer into letting her wander into its stomach again and again until she had stitched the sun and the moon back into the sky.

(did she need a ladder?)

He learns how to grow roses, the red of woodwives instead of the green of the King.

(don’t lick your fingers, blood helps them grow)

One day, his aunt comes back from the store with a teddy bear half the length of her body and twice as thick, a rosy pink with bright blue button eyes. When Matt rushes toward with a barely-suppressed squeal, however, she puts an arm out to stop him.

“Go get me a knife from the kitchen,” she says, her face hidden behind the plush.

“Uh, why?”

“Just do it, Matilda.”

He wonders if she’s starting to notice how much of a spur that name is under his skin.

When he returns with the knife, she drops the toy to the floor with a soft thud – and begins slicing into the junction of shoulder and arm.

She harshly shushes Matt’s tortured wail, continuing her assault until the arm is completely severed. Matt falls to his knees, cradling its round face in his hands. “I will avenge you,” he whispers as he pulls the bear into a tight embrace.

“Matilda, don’t be over dramatic,” his aunt chides. “Now – should you put this back together with pins or with needles?”

 _“You_ should be the one putting him back together, you monster!” Matt screams in response.

His aunt sighs in exasperation and smacks his crown with the arm, spilling all the more polyester fluff onto the floor. “This is serious, young lady. This is probably one of the most important lessons you’ll learn from me. Now: does a woodwife walk the path of pins, or the path of needles?”

Matt stares, his only sound his quiet sniffling.

Another sigh. “Pins are only a band-aid solution. Sewing something up takes longer, but is the only way to truly fix the problem. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He nods.

A smile. “Now –“

“But where do the needles come in?”

His aunt pulls her purse open over her mouth and lets loose a tortured, banshee scream.

* * *

“Zisa and Tyr used pins when they bound the Devourer,” his aunt’s soft voice is lulling him into a strange peace as she guides his hands through the motions. Over, under, tie and break between your teeth.

 “That was pretty dumb of them,” he says. Those must have been pretty big pins. Where would you even get those? He can’t even find light-colored clothes that don’t show off his bra.

“Well, they didn’t have much of a choice, just as we have no choice but to protect humanity until he returns. When he does, there is nothing any of us can do to stop him.”

Matt thinks it should be relatively simple to kill something that doesn’t exist, but he keeps that to himself. He grins as the final stitches are drawn taunt, giving the bear’s arm an experimental wave, then a high-five. “Yay, we did it!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

His aunt shakes her head, a little sadly, a little with mirth. She tips his forehead back towards her, dropping a kiss on top of his orange bangs. “Your real job as a woodwife is to never let them know you aren’t working with needles.”

* * *

(His aunt buys him a new glass frame for his mother’s photo shortly after he moves in.

Six months later and neither have moved out from under Matt’s bed.)

 

 

 


	2. iv.

He meets the prince Edward and princess Elayna at the annual Woodwife Gala, yet another in an endless succession of pretty, pretty parties he had grown so used to while he mother was alive—and so used to skipping now that she is not.

“Don’t take too long, now,” his aunt whispers-yells, fighting to be heard over the roar of gossip and classical jazz. “The awards are about to start.”

Matt twirls out of her grasp quickly, so she won’t see him roll his eyes. Oh yes, wouldn’t want to miss the annual parade of Literally Whos to anyone under the age of forty-five, all royal boot-lickers. The real award show, everyone knows, is the competition at Drayton Manor. Now if he could only get a bid…

Besides, the real point of interest tonight is whether the Green King will “donate” a year of his daughter Elayna’s life to the Royal Order of Woodwives, the tradition ever Mad King Louie tried to behead every one in the kingdom.

Chump change, really, but it’s still the topic of all the snatches of conversation Matt manages to grab as he weaves in and out of pockets of women.

He’d only do _that_ so he has a reason to not name her his heir – Like he’s gonna name one anyway – Isn’t she going with some duke’s son anyway? – She’s a pianist, she’ll take to it easily –

Matt plants himself in the corner of the room, chancing a hand down his bra. You’d think his aunt could afford a washing machine that hasn’t declared the wires of Matt’s bras its mortal enemy. God, it _itches._

(Didn’t some forestborn ask about her?, another hushed voice desperate to be heard – That crazy guy calling himself Red Leader?, a loud laugh. That’d be great; remember the story Mom showed us last week, about Judith and Holofernes?)

Is the princess even _here?_ Are any of the princes?

Well, “princess” and “prince” are both a bit of a misnomer; the Green King has no children, only bastards.

The last thing Matt heard about the princess Elayna is that she raised half a million within an hour of her charity livestream – and then, still live, sent her and her misplaced twin both toppling out a window. Also that she needs to try harder, a complaint he’s oft heard from magazines and girlfriends and television – what kind of princess barely wears her own makeup line? Sure, she’s pretty, but she’s not _that_ pretty.

(Matt seems to have been the only one of his friends to notice that none of the official foundation swatches even have a match for her.)

Edward, Matt’s girl friends have deduced from the smattering of paparazzi creepshots that make up his celebrity, is not the cutest. Face and frame still lined in baby fat and lightly pocked with acne, always wearing a cheap green hoodie and jeans so unbefitting of his status. Sure, his fans take this as a sign of his humility, and he’s an artist, he must have a sensitive side beneath, but _Eduardo,_ at only seventeen, is already a man. Toned, English accented, already grooming a mustache. We almost never hear him speak Spanish, it’s a little disappointing. But oh, imagine how much he must speak in private…

Bleh. Maybe when he shaves that pubic hair he calls a mustache.

So unlike half of the room, Matt feels only a tad disappointed when neither of the bastard-princes are anywhere to be found. They must be here, though, hiding somewhere in the Chateau de Lune’s labyrinthine passages. The ones he knew so well as a child, but which now elude him, thanks to the Green King’s recent decision to plaster every inch of the place in moon and suns.

The princess, however, is here, drowning in an emerald dress more gemstone than cloth, her hands coming up to cover her throat or splay over her breastbone with every fake laugh and tortured smile. The sign that she knows better than everyone who much her décolleté exposes; Matt knows it well.

(and a sign of someone who still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that growing up means having to now stand still and smile while the boys run off and play)

Matt’s hand brushes against his wrist, feeling only the grip of a charm bracelet.

A tall, blond woman wearing a simple blue suit parts the crowd around the princess, two chalices in hand. Then, after a few brief nods and whispers, the princess nods and curtsies to her sycophants and follows the blonde out, passing only feet away from where Matt stands.

_Don’t do it._

_She doesn’t want to be bothered._

In the light, Matt can see one of the princess’s bracelets shine – a grumpy bear-shaped silver charm, just like the one on his own wrist.

Matt grins.

_I am not Matilda Astra MacDermott for nothing._

* * *

The blonde whirls around as soon as Matt enters the hall, despite his attempts to stay nondescript by walking on his tip-toes and hiding behind walls. And it’s hard to keep quiet when the princess is mom-walking at the speed most people run, so Matt was feeling proud of himself, too.

“Name and purpose,” the blonde commands, sounding bored. Despite the long length of tile between them, Matt finally recognizes her as one of the princess’s bloodbound guards, missing her other half.

“Matilda MacDermott. Me and Princess Elayna collect the same charms.”

The princess doesn’t turn around until half of her dress’s skirt has been unhooked and pooled at her feet, exposing black knee-pads. She points to her wrist. “Bendee’s?”

Matt points to his own. “Tomee Bear, silver rare, series three mystery boxes.”

Elayna flashes two finger-guns at Matt. “Nice.” The bloodbound picks up the discarded skirt and folds it over her arm, pulling a small blue gun from her pocket and laying it in the princess’s hand as the other waves Matt over. He practically skips, a wide grin stretching his face until it feels like it’s about to tear. This close, the princess smells like cherries, and Matt has to stop himself from leaning forward into it.

“Are you alright?” The blonde bloodbound asks Matt, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, why?”

“You’re shaking.”

The princess shushes them. “Do you hear that?” She asks as her pokes her head over the next corner. Matt is close enough to note now that the gun she’s holding is made of plastic and filled with a small chamber of foam darts, but she holds it with purpose.

“No – am I supposed to?” Matt asks, leaning to the side until he’s standing on one foot. As he peeks down the next hallway, he sees only that tacky pattern of celestial bodies crisscrossing north into eternity. The bloodbound starts to pull him back by the shoulder, but the princess waves her away.

“Listen,” she snaps, so Matt leans sideways again, sticking his leg out for balance, and tries. A grumbling, a synthesizer distorted, a whine.

“Are those…cars?” Matt asks.

“Go-carts,” the bloodbound clarifies. “Edd, Bing, and Larry.”

 _Prince Edward?_ Matt feels his heart skip a beat, forgetting entirely how supposedly above it all he was but a few minutes ago. Over the sounds of wheels and motors, the music sounds as though it's being played from an old speaker, rising and then falling under a voice Matt has only heard on television — the prince, bickering loud enough for the trio to hear but not comprehend. “What song is that?” Matt asks.                                                              

The princess chuckles to herself. “Of course.”

"That didn't answer my question." The bloodbound squeezes his arm and glares, but Matt simply mouths back, "Well, she didn't."

The princess turns to them as the sounds grow louder, a squeal of wheels turning. "Alright, here's what I need you to do," she tells him. "I need to you to run out there and tell Edd that I drank all his cola. That's it."

"And then what?"

The princess smiles. "Just watch. Now _go, go,_ they're coming!" And she shoves Matt forward, nearly tripping over the hem of his dress (and he surely hears something tear). Matt wobbles, throwing his arms out for balance as three go-carts, yellow, red, and blue spot a mere feet away from him.

Up this close, Matt can finally make out the song: " _Eeeeeeeeeverything you know is wrong. Black is white, up is down, and short is long..._ "

The prince looks so both underwhelming and underrated in person, his too-small suit unbuttoned and belt undone, his dark bangs hanging over his eyes, still slightly bouncing to musical descriptions of alien abductions.

Not truly cute yet, but full of untapped potential, Matt decides. Cute adjacent.

Beside him are his bloodbound guards: one a dishwater blonde with an eye-patch, the other a brunette with curls about as messy as the prince's. Eyepatch holding out a phone, its screen the Skype blue, and Curls holding a boombox in his lap.

"Permission to run the intruder over, sir," Boombox asks.

Eyepatch rolls his good eye, but before any of them can reply, Matt bursts out, "I drank all your cola!"

A heartbeat pause. "You what?" the prince asks.

"Ey head," the phone says. "What's going on?"

Matt's brain sputters back to life, face heated to the surface of the sun as he tries to start again. "I mean -- the princess wanted me to tell you I -- as in she -- drank all your cola."

"She _what?_ " The prince yells. His go-cart suddenly lurches forward, and Matt jumps out of the way – not that it matters, because Eyepatch rolls his good eye again and presses a button under his steering wheel, bringing the prince’s cart to a grinding halt. “Hey!” He twists around, practically standing out of his seat-belt with what Matt can guess is a glower.

Eyepatch shrugs. “Motor vehicles are not allowed in the ballroom, sire. You know this.”

The prince growls, then fights with his seat-belt until he’s able to crawl out of his cart, still angrily grumbling.

“Is she still in the ballroom?” Boombox asks Matt. Matt’s eyes quickly dart to the princess and her bloodbound – the latter holding the former underhand, ready to toss her like a bowling ball, both of whom shaking their heads, cutting lines across their necks.

“No…?” Matt says, which earns two thumbs-up. Matt smiles – no, too much, tone it down – and turns his attention back to the fuming prince, furiously tapping his foot beside his cart. “No, she’s still at the gala.”

“Great,” the prince snaps, striding forward. “Great, great,” – he shoves Matt out of the way so hard he stumbles back into the wall – “now let’s _go_.”

_Pop._

Suddenly he flies back, his body an arc as his sister slides across the floor, hollering in triumph. The prince falls flat on his back, a toppled giant, the proverbial pebble bounced off his forehead and rolling to rest at Matt’s feet.

The prince lies there, spread-eagle. Silent.

His bloodbound roll up to him slowly, Eyepatch holding out his arm to fence away Matt’s attempt to help the prince up. The princess’s own guard is giggling behind her hand as she says, “She didn’t, actually,” and jogs off to follow her charge.

The prince looses a relieved sigh.

“Permission to put you down like a horse, sire?” Boombox asks, leaning over.

“Permission denied, Bing,” Eyepatch chides.

“I didn’t know you suddenly became my superior.”

“I’ve always been, in every way that matters.”

The one named Bing looks as though he’s about to snap something, but the prince raises his hands up, signaling them to pull him to his feet.

Finally Matt can notice the soft red mark dead in the center of his forehead, a pink third eye. He looks oddly serene, his lips a small smile. “Glad that’s over,” he sighs.

“What’s over?”

He turns to look at Matt, as if suddenly remember he’s there. “The wait,” he says finally. “I’ve been waiting for one of them to take a shot at me for over a month.”

Suddenly the phone lights up again. _“Are you still there, head?”_

The prince takes the phone from Eyepatch and replies, “Yeah, Ell got me.”

_“Just now?”_

“Yeah, she even got a decoy and everything.”

_“Wow.”_

Matt can’t see his eyes for all the hair, but he feels them travel up and down his body, the curls pulled loose from his pins, the bra strap slipped down his shoulder.

He offers a smile – and blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind, the reason he pulled free from his aunt in the first place: “Do you know where the arcade is?”


	3. xi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this even make sense out of context? Do I know? Is it even possible to truly know anything? Do I care? How did I somehow write 16k words for Tom's signature chapter and not actually write any of the relationships between characters? Am I the Devil? Hello? God? Hello?

xi.

“I wish my aunt would let me cut my hair,” Matt whines, leaning against the tri-fold of mirrors that line one wall of the prince’s suite. He has a whole suite all to himself, at only fifteen; even Matt was never given that much.

Edd, who had been looking through the high stack of drawing papers on his desk, opens one of his desk drawers and pulls out a pair of scissors. Not safety scissors; kitchen, meant for hard plastic and crimes of passion. “Why not let me cut it?” he asks with a smile, punctuating it with a loud snip.

“She’ll be pissed.”

“I’m one of the Green King’s bastards, though, are I not?” Edd quips back, stealing across the room to Matt. “And I hereby decree that she will just have to deal with it.”

They meet eyes, blue to brown, and Matt matches his mischievous smile, bunching his hair in his fist and presenting it like a neck out for decapitation. “Go for it.”

ivx.

It’s treason, but it’s worth a try.

They tell Bing they have some of his foul papers of his latest script, and though he says they’re no longer necessary, they finally convince him to come to Hellucard’s house and meet him in the garden shed out back, jumping over the fence.

They have ready a frying pan, ropes, chains, and some food.

Most importantly, they have the yarn. Matt’s never tried a concealing spell, but then again, he’s never been a good woodwife either, despite playing one on TV.

“Whatever you’re planning,” Bing says with a sigh. "It's not going to work.”

The lines cutting down his face are suddenly all too sharp: the sunkenness of his cheeks, the bruises of his eyes.

The mushrooms growing out of his arm. Bing’s mark had normally been hidden under his uniform, but now that uniform is slashed to reveal mushrooms with tops the size of saucers, crimson as blood.

Blood stains his arm. Old.

Like his heart’s stopped beating.

Bing pushes open the door to the shed, allowing the bucket to fall on his head. Matt shakes the thought off and smacks Bing upside the head soon as he walks into the shed –but this ain’t the movies, he doesn’t go down immediately. He twirls and lunges, his arm catching fire as he grabs the front of Matt’s shirt, hissing in pain as Matt scrambles away.

“Fuck!” He’s cursing as he waves his arms about, ignoring the bucket upon his head – until Hellucard trips him and he falls on his back with a thump. Both boys take the opportunity to lock Bing’s wrists in the chains, the fires now doused – he’s not a full Forestborn yet, as Matt tells Hellucard, or otherwise they’d still be burning.

Hellucard nods, eyes wide and wild. “Good, good.”

They jump away as Bing lets out an animal roar and lunges again, and then –

And then –

Hellucard faints; Matt freezes; Bing’s eyes widen and he grabs his head.

The Forest, it flickers. Birds with four wings, red as blood, perch on the shelves of rusted garden spades and hedge clippers; onyx vines twine around shovels and ropes of hose; the air crackles with faint laughter, so low you’d turn around in the street and silently declare you’re going crazy.

“Can’t you smell it?” Bing asks, voice spread thin.

“What?” Matt asks, with a quiver in his voice he didn’t expect.

“The blood.”

Oh yes, Matt can.

The air is so thick with it Matt can taste it on his tongue.

vx.

You never talk about it, no matter how often Edd or a guard or a royal investigator asks. It doesn't matter. The castle pretends to mourn for Bing, Edd really does, even if he shows it by retreating into a part of himself even you can't see or touch, and things go back to normal. 

The man with the antlers and the rose for an eye now walks through your dreams. 

xxx.

You buy a new mirror a month after you start testosterone. Your aunt says you’re making a huge mistake, but you’re one of the Princes’ Woodwives now, she cannot take that away from you, (even if the word itself gives you to many feelings to count), and now you have a reason not answer any of her calls. (I mean, she'd _agreed_ with the caste employment coordinator that 'woodsband' is a stupid portmanteau, and you explaining that that was the entire point hadn't swayed either, so you don't need that kinda negativity in your life.)

She’s been good to you, overall; it makes you kinda sad. But then again, Edd’s dad is the fucking king and even he doesn’t answer most of his calls. Honestly, both Matt and Edd are sure that he only calls just so he can say he did. It’s not my fault, it’s his.

You look in the mirror and see a square jaw, freckled cheeks, a nice, Roman nose and baby blue eyes, soft as Robin’s eggs.

You feel something open up in your chest, a bird being let free, and you hug the mirror close to your chest.

“Like it?” Edd asks.

You give the mirror another hard squeeze, feeling its hardness against your chest, pressed down flat itself. “I want a million of them.”

“That can be arranged,” Edd says with a laugh. You hold the mirror out again and holy fuck, how could I have left this handsome devil inside me remain buried?

“I’m not even joking, right now.”

“Maybe I should commission a statue of you.”

“You should, honestly!” You cry emphatically. “Do you see this?” You circle your face with your hand. “This, compared to that garbage they have in the museums now? Most definitely.”

Edd laughs again. “I’ll get right on it. Did you send in the paperwork for your name change yet?”

“OH shit!” You knock the mirror against your head, groaning in pain as a knot begins to form along his hairline. “I forgot!”

“Don’t worry; the postal’s still open tomorrow.”

“I haven’t even filled it all out,” Matt says. “I know Matt is the name I want, but should I change my middle name, too? I mean, it doesn’t really matter, but I still feel like I should, y’know?”

“I don’t, but if you want to change it, go ahead and do it anyway! Who cares? It’s your name.”

“That’s true. So should I change Astra to something else, or just scrap it entirely?”

“I like changing Astra.”

“Astro or Astros?” Matt glances at Edd’s wide grin, and his brain’s gears clink into place. “Matt Astro MacDermott?” Matt hums, drums his fingers against his chin. “I dunno. Matt Astros MacDermott? I think I like that better.”

“Is it alright if I still give you nicknames?” Edd asks.

“Sure, I guess.”

“Alright, then.” Edd says, his voice gaining regality. “Get on your knees.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

So he does. Matt leans down, and Edd closes his eyes, touching each of Matt’s shoulders with his bottle of coke-cola, speaking as though with the voice of God. _“I hereby christen thee my robot son, Astro Boy.”_


End file.
